Yeah, I know, you can pretty much stop with "naturalnews.com". Unfortunately, this was posted by a close relative who is a new (and young) mother. I'm trying to find an easily understandable way to debunk this particular nugget, even though it's probably futile. I don't think she's a dyed-in-the-wool anti-vaxxer, just probably someone who is listening to the wrong people.

I just haven't found much to go by in internet searches. Handy that it's "a California hospital". If they'd named some place specific, they'd run into some actual legal risks. I wonder if the whole thing is 100% made up, or if there's a kernel of truth (baby dies of SIDS after getting vaccine, which is statistically likely to happen considering they all get vaccines). There is a name for the alleged mother, "Crystal Dowling", but various google searches have turned up nothing at all. Not even a hit to the NN story. Searching for the URL directly, I can only find a bunch of people posting it as fact.

The article you link does specify the Colorado River Medical Center in Needles, Ca (http://www.crmccares.com). Googling the infant's name brought up several references to baby Matthew Gage Downing-Powers, including a Go Fund Me page from 2013 (http://www.gofundme.com/4q7qng). The story of his death seems to be the same in several articles that came up from 2013, all from anti-vaxer groups. I can't find the mother's original quote.

That doesn't mean it happened, or that it happened the way it was told. The baby supposedly had 8 shots at 5.5 months old. That is more than the CDC recommends at once (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedule...dolescent.html), but they may have been behind schedule trying to catch up. 5.5 months is a little older than average for SIDS, but well within the time frame.

The best way you can debunk it is point out the literature with the effectiveness of vaccines (ie: how child mortality rates have risen as well as the eradication of diseases such as smallpox thanks to vaccine efforts).

Then there is the fact that SID's is a worldwide phenomenon, affecting children throughout centuries, long before vaccines were invented (back when we ran around rubbing scabs on our bodies and mixing tainted blood in open wounds to protect ourselves...so glad we now have shiny needles to make it easier).

And for a personal story, my uncle vaccinated his oldest child, who had seizures and is now mentally stunted to the age of a one year old. She had the worst and rarest side effect known...and he would still vaccinate his other child if he wasn't allergic to eggs and other ingredients in them (I swear my cousin is allergic to life). That is how much he trusts their safety.